


Just Breathe

by ronandhermy



Category: Flesh and Bone (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 08:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9313361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronandhermy/pseuds/ronandhermy
Summary: A few snapshots into Claire's life, and the secrets therein, before she moved to New York.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not for the faint of heart. If you are triggered by incest I would recommend you close the tab or turn back.

He smells like cheap cigarettes and the cologne of hard work. And underneath all of that, underneath the telltale smells of Pittsburgh and home, is the overwhelming scent of him. No one else seems to be overwhelmed by it. Just her. 

She tries to remember when his scent starting making her lose her breath. And her mind flinches away from the memory of boyish hands holding her just a bit too tight in the middle of the night, and a rough voice that was still breaking due to puberty moan her name, _“Claire, Claire, Claire,”_ over and over again as something hard moved over her, between layers of thin cotton pjs. She couldn’t breath as his hands moved over her, memorizing her, possessing her, as she stared at the wall in the darkness. She hadn’t even memorized her high school locker combination by the time her brother had memorized the shape and feel of her breasts, her thighs, her stomach. 

And his smell lingered on her long after she took a shower. 

***

The doctors made her talk to a therapist after the reason for her pregnancy came out. They were very kind when they asked their clinical questions. Softening the probing inquiry of, _“How long have you been sexually active?”_ Since I was 15. _“Are you on birth control?”_ No. Obviously. _“Have you ever been on birth control?”_ No. _“Have you used condoms in the past?”_ No. _“How many sexual partners have you had?”_ One. _“Was it consensual?”_ I don’t know. 

The therapist was an older woman who looked like she should be retired, with dark skin wrinkled with laugh lines. She had a way of making Claire feel at ease. As if she didn’t need to know if the door was locked. Didn’t need to know where she could hide. But she couldn’t hide from herself, or her increasingly swelling belly.

It wasn’t her fault. Her doctors and the therapist kept telling her that and in her heart of hearts she desperately wanted to believe them. But she couldn’t help feeling as if she could have stopped it. That when she started getting older she should have told her brother to leave her bed. It wasn’t right. No other middle school girls let their brothers sleep in their bed. But she’d liked the comfort her brother gave her. At least in the beginning. He’d made her feel safe and loved in a household that offered none of those things. So maybe she was at fault because she was greedy to feel loved. And in wanting to be loved she received the wrong kind of love. The twisted kind that sunk into a person’s skin and left stains. 

_It wasn’t my fault,_ she tells herself, over and over and over again. Maybe one day she'd fully believe it. 

***

He used to watch her practice. Not all of the time. He had football after school after all, but he’d usually catch the last fifteen minutes or so. He always told her she looked so beautiful, even though her hair was matted with sweat and she stank to high heaven. He liked to pull her close and breath in her scent even as she began to hold her breath against his. 

She would go to his football games, where he usually got to play for at least one half. It always surprised her how violent her older brother was on the field. Smashing into his opponents. But then her mind would flash to certain late nights when her brother would move inside of her, faster and faster, until she thought she might break from the force of it. And she’d scream a cheer in the stands to drown out her memories. 

***

She got asked out in high school. Once. By a guy who didn’t know any better. Everyone knew Claire Robbins had an overprotective brother. Plus, she was always so busy with dance and homework and taking care of her old man that it wasn’t like she had a lot of time to spare. 

But she said yes. His name was David. He was going to take her out for ice cream, never mind that she wasn’t supposed to eat such a high calorie dish. 

He stood her up. It was only later that she would learn that Bryan had had a special “talk” with him.

But that night Bryan had held her so close and murmured such comforting words as she cried, that she’d let him inside her with hardly a flinch in the dark. Her brother kept his mouth on hers to drink in her sound, but afterward he kissed her all over while murmuring. _“Mine, Claire, you’re mine,”_ his breath was a ghost of ownership on her skin, _“And I’m yours.”_

***  
She graduated high school and her dad actually came to the ceremony. He was drunk, but it was the thought that counted. At least that’s what she kept telling herself as she felt the familiar snakes of shame and embarrassment coil in her belly. 

And Bryan was there, having graduated two years before, but still living at home and doing odd jobs. And still visiting his sister’s room at night to hold her close and move inside her. 

But today was a good day. She was graduating high school and she was joining the Pittsburgh Ballet. She had the official letter and everything. One day she would be a prima ballerina and leave everything behind. 

***

Being a dancer meant irregular periods. Or at least that’s what she told herself. It was why she hadn’t worried when she’d missed a month. And then another. But then she started throwing up in the morning. Still, a dancer’s body often went through periods of stress. By the fourth month she bought a take home pregnancy test.

She hated herself for buying it. Hated herself for reading the instructions with an eye to the words “false positive” and which sign meant “negative.” Hated herself for taking the test at home. Rooky mistake. 

It was positive. But of course it was. Life always did like to shit on the down and out. 

Bryan found her crying, curled up into a ball by the toilet, holding the test so hard as if by exerting pressure she could change the results. 

He gathered her into his arms, kissing her face, her head, her neck. Any place he could reach as he murmured, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” 

Her brother was a liar.

***

Their dad found out. He couldn’t have found out earlier when Bryan had begun sneaking into Claire’s room to touch her in the middle of the night. He couldn’t have found out when Bryan gave Claire his virginity while taking hers. He couldn’t have found out at any other time before it was too late.

Because it was too late. She was having her brother’s baby. A physical reminder of all that was wrong with her life.

Their dad yelled. But more then that, he forced Bryan to sign up for the military. He was no longer welcome in this country the sick sister fucker. Better hope the Taliban killed him or else the old man would have to finish the job.

But their dad wouldn’t let her get an abortion. She was in her second trimester, but without her dad’s support she didn’t have the cash or the place to crash. And he was still a Catholic. Lapsed, of course. But always willing to bring out doctrine when it suited him. No daughter of his was getting an abortion. No matter even is she was a brother fucker.

So she chose a closed adoption. She’d rip the baby out of her womb herself if she thought she would survive the process. But death would mean no more dancing, so adoption it was. 

*** 

Birth felt a lot like dying.

Halfway around the world a man closed his eyes and pictured his sister’s face as explosions echoed around him.

***

Bryan didn’t tell his fellow Marines that he had a sister. No. He had a girlfriend. He showed them her picture and everything. 

He explained that they were childhood sweethearts but that her dad didn’t approve. He didn’t tell anyone about the baby. 

But sometimes, in the quiet and the dark, he would dream of Claire with her beautiful brown hair and picture their child. Sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. And they were waiting for him to come home. Waiting to hold him and to welcome him back with open arms. It was, after all, a dream. 

***

She chose New York for the ballet. And, if she was being honest, because it seemed easier to get lost among 8 million people than anywhere else. 

The dancers in New York were harsh, abrasive. She welcomed it. Kindness, Claire had learned early on, always had a cost. 

***

When she picked up the phone she knew he was touching himself. She knew how he breathed when he fucked his hand, her hand, her mouth, her cunt. 

She couldn’t speak, because she couldn’t say anything. Her mind was nothing by a blank sheet of emotion. She thought it was over. It was supposed to be over. 

But it wasn’t. Maybe it would never be over.

And on her apartment’s fire escape 400 miles away she choked on his scent.


End file.
